Bird Egg Nests

Bird Egg Nests

Ingredients:

Almond Bark - I used 9 squares
2 Tbsp peanut butter
12 ounce bag of Chow Mein Noodles
Reece's Peanut Butter Eggs


Directions:

Melt Almond Bark, in 30 second intervals. Once smooth and creamy, add peanut butter and stir in. Then add Chow Mein Noodles and mix well. Drop by spoonful to form nests. Add 1-3 peanut butter eggs on top.

Store in airtight container.


Serves: 36

Nutrition: 146-166 calories (depending on 1 or 3 eggs)

Brownies

Have you been in search of that brownie that just melts in your mouth? These are them. Delicious. I'd rather have a vanilla cupcake, but my middle child had a half birthday (pretty big deal when you're a preschooler!) and her favorite is brownies. She requested brownies to take to school (with a summer birthday they celebrate half  birthdays instead...) And so I found this recipe, fabulous. Melts in your mouth perfection. After eating one of these you will never buy a box mix again (except for those lazy days, ha!)

Best Basic Brownie
Source: Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 cup Butter

2 cups White Sugar

4 whole Eggs

2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

⅔ cups Cocoa Powder

1 cup Flour

½ teaspoons Salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×13 pan.

Melt butter. Add ingredients in the order listed, mix just until mixed.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Do not overbake.

Serves: 24

Nutrition: 168 calories, unfrosted
233 calories each when lightly frosted (half batch of my Chocolate Buttercream Frosting)

While they are delicious plain, to add to the chocolatey dreaminess of the basic brownie, add chocolate frosting :) For my daughters class I used a half batch of my Chocolate Buttercream Frosting so that the preschoolers wouldn't be on too big of a sugar high!

You could even dazzle them up with sprinkles :)

Delicious!

Mint Fudge

This recipe is fantastic, it came from the mom of a friend of mine.

Layered Mint Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients
1 - 12 ounce package of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 - 14 ounce can of Sweetened Condensed Milk, separated
2 tsp vanilla
1 c white almond bark
1 Tbsp Peppermint Extract
1 drop of green food coloring

Directions
In a heavy saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips with 1 cup sweetened condensed milk, add vanilla. Spread half the mix into an 8 or 9 inch square pan that was lined with wax paper. Chill for 10 minutes or until firm. Leave the remaining half of the chocolate mixture at room temperature.

In another heavy saucepan, over low heat, melt white almond bark with remaining sweetened condensed milk. Add peppermint & food coloring. Spread on chilled chocolate layer. Chill 10 minutes or until firm.  cover with remaining chocolate mixture. Chill 2 hours or until Firm

Calories
I cut my pan in 7x8 rows for 56 bars (I did neatly trim the edges so there was a small amount of "waste" to taste!) 56 bars yeilds 73 calories per bar.

Cream Cheese Cookie Bars

Yum, Yum

I found this recipe at Amanda's Cookin' and it is fabulous!

Cream Cheese Cookie Bars
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened (I use fat free)
1 egg
1/2 t almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Beat the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and egg until nice and frothy, about 4 minutes. Add the vanilla and almond extract and beat for 1 minute more.
In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat for 2 minutes. Press the dough into a large jelly roll (cookie sheet) pan. (Mine was 10.5x15.5) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let the pan cool completely.

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter softened
4 oz cream cheese, softened
3 1/2 - 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3-5 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
food coloring or icing paste

To make the frosting, in a medium sized bowl (or your stand mixer) combine the butter and cream cheese. Beat for 2 minutes. Add the powdered sugar, milk, vanilla and food coloring. Mix for 1-2 minutes or until smooth. Frost your pan of cookies.

Cut the cookies into bars and serve.

Don't forget to lick the frosting bowl clean.

Add sprinkles if desired, like we did for this Valentine's treat.

Enjoy!

** You may want to ignore this part of the post. I did a little math and calculated that if you cut the pan into 54 bars like I did, there are 148 calories per serving, using fat-free cream cheese. Sadly, it is easy to eat 2 or even 3 bars without blinking, oops!

Freezing
I did freeze half my bars (so I'd stop eating them!!) and when I took them out a week later they were still fabulous as if they were freshly baked that day!